Why the Galaxy Z Fold 7's super sleek design is hurting my thumb

I get it: thin is the new black. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is Samsung’s—and the world’s—thinnest foldable smartphone, and it looks and feels incredible in the hand. But after about two weeks of using it, I’ve come to a frustrating conclusion: this thing might be too thin for its own good.

Specifically, I’m talking about the power button. Since the very first Galaxy Fold, the power button has doubled as a fingerprint sensor, which means it sits flush with the side of the device instead of jutting out like a traditional button. That has never been a problem, at least not until the Fold 7 came along.

The Fold 7 is so insanely thin that the lack of space around the power button makes it awkward to press. It's especially awkward when you want to double press it to launch the camera (or any other task or app you may have assigned to that gesture).

Often, my thumb gets stuck after the first press, forcing me to retry the gesture to get it to work. Sometimes, that turns into a triple press and triggers an emergency call, as the phone assumes that I deliberately pressed the button three times when I was simply retrying the double press after failing my previous attempt.

I’ve started to get the hang of it over time, but should we really need practice just to press a button? The Galaxy Z Fold 7’s design is undeniably impressive. But when form takes such precedence over function, I think it’s worth pointing out.

And this may just be how things are going forward. Samsung likely won’t make future models thicker, so the only real fix would be moving the fingerprint sensor under the display and giving us a regular power button. But unless foldable phones eventually feature actual glass covering the foldable screen, an in-display sensor probably isn’t happening any time soon.